Review-A-Day

"While very little in the book is meant to be taken seriously, it is clever enough to qualify as more than just an assemblage of one-liners. Whether you agree with her observations or not, Ephron's perspective as an admittedly high-maintenance, New York-dwelling, successful screenwriter will keep you entertained. She doesn't stop with necks, but takes on other afflictions (and a few delights) that mark this season of her life....These topics are laced with wry observations, told in an intimate style that makes Ephron seem like a close friend spilling details about her life." April Austin, The Christian Science Monitor (read the entire CSM review)

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

With her disarming, intimate, completely accessible voice, and dry sense of humor, Nora Ephron shares with us her ups and downs in I Feel Bad About My Neck, a candid, hilarious look at women who are getting older and dealing with the tribulations of maintenance, menopause, empty nests, and life itself.

The woman who brought us When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, You've Got Mail, and Bewitched, and the author of best sellers Heartburn, Scribble Scribble, and Crazy Salad, discusses everything — from how much she hates her purse to how much time she spends attempting to stop the clock: the hair dye, the treadmill, the lotions and creams that promise to slow the aging process but never do. Oh, and she can't stand the way her neck looks. But her dermatologist tells her there's no quick fix for that.

Ephron chronicles her life as an obsessed cook, passionate city dweller, and hapless parent. She recounts her anything-but-glamorous days as a White House intern during the JFK years ("I am probably the only young woman who ever worked in the Kennedy White House that the President did not make a pass at.") and shares how she fell in and out of love with Bill Clinton — from a distance, of course. But mostly she speaks frankly and uproariously about life as a woman of a certain age.

Utterly courageous, wickedly funny, and unexpectedly moving in its truth telling, I Feel Bad About My Neck is a book of wisdom, advice, and laugh-out-loud moments, a scrumptious, irresistible treat.

Review:

"The honest truth is that it's sad to be over sixty,' concludes Nora Ephron in her sparkling new book about aging. With 15 essays in 160 pages, this collection is short, a thoughtful concession to pre- and post-menopausal women (who else is there?), like herself, who 'can't read a word on the pill bottle,' follow a thought to a conclusion, or remember the thought after not being able to read the pill bottle. Ephron drives the truth home like a nail in your soon-to-be-bought coffin: 'Plus, you can't wear a bikini.' But just as despair sets in, she admits to using 'quite a lot of bath oil... I'm as smooth as silk.' Yes, she is. This is aging lite — but that might be the answer. Besides, there's always Philip Roth for aging heavy.Ephron, in fact, offers a brief anecdote about Roth, in a chapter on cooking, concerning her friend Jane, who had a one-night stand, long ago, with the then 'up-and-coming' writer. He gave Jane a copy of his latest book. 'Take one on your way out,' he said. Conveniently, there was a box of them by the front door. Ephron refuses to analyze — one of her most refreshing qualities — and quickly moves on to Jane's cleri remoulade. Aging, according to Ephron, is one big descent — and who would argue? (Well, okay — but they'd lose the argument if they all got naked.) There it is, the steady spiraling down of everything: body and mind, breasts and balls, dragging one's self-respect behind them. Ephron's witty riffs on these distractions are a delightful antidote to the prevailing belief that everything can be held up with surgical scaffolding and the drugs of denial. Nothing, in the end, prevents the descent. While signs of mortality proliferate, Ephron offers a rebuttal of consequence: an intelligent, alert, entertaining perspective that does not take itself too seriously. (If you can't laugh, after all, you are already, technically speaking, dead.) She does, however, concede that hair maintenance — styling, dyeing, highlighting, blow-drying — is a serious matter, not to mention the expense. 'Once I picked up a copy of Vogue while having my hair done, and it cost me twenty thousand dollars. But you should see my teeth.' Digging deeper, she discovers that your filthy, bulging purse containing numerous things you don't need — and couldn't find if you did — is, 'in some absolutely horrible way, you.' Ephron doesn't shy away from the truth about sex either, and confesses, though with an appropriate amount of shame, that despite having been a White House intern in 1961, she did not have an affair with JFK. May Ephron, and her purse, endure so she can continue to tell us how it goes. Or, at least, where it went." Signature Review by Toni Bentley. Toni Bentley is the author, most recently, of Sisters of Salome and The Surrender, an Erotic Memoir. She is writing about Emma, Lady Hamilton, for the Eminent Lives series. Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Review:

"A disparate assortment of sharp and funny pieces revealing the private anguishes, quirks and passions of a woman on the brink of senior citizenhood." Kirkus Reviews

Review:

"[M]ost of these essays work as comic relief, tailor-made to the publications in which they first appeared...but executed with overall sharpness and panache. They prompt the wish that Ms. Ephron would let down her painstakingly colored and blown-dry hair a lot more often." Janet Maslin, the New York Times

Review:

"What is so refreshing about Ephron is that she doesn't take herself too seriously. Mid-complaint about her rising rent, she has the self-perspective to quip, 'And no one cared. Even I wouldn't have cared if I hadn't been me.'" Newsday

Review:

"Use this wryly romantic book as a guide to musing about mortality, or just curling up in your empty nest." O: Oprah magazine

Review:

"I Feel Bad About My Neck...is the kind of book you want to buy for all your baby-boomer girlfriends as they dread their next birthdays. Her little book of essays is indeed a gift — rich with laughs and comforting in its reflections on everything from hair dye...to reading glasses." Rocky Mountain News

Review:

"Ephron returns to her print roots with a new collection of essays reflecting the perspective of an aging — but still crackling sharp — cultural scribe." Boston Globe

Synopsis:

The perfect holiday gift: a pair of hilarious books from the “wickedly witty and astute” Nora Ephron, a “crackling smart cultural scribe” (The Boston Globe) whose insights and observations have made her a heroine to women all over America.

Critics and readers embraced the nationwide best seller I Feel Bad About My Neck&#8212;“Marvelous” (The Washington Post); “Sparkling” (Ladies Home Journal); “Delightful” (TheNew York Review of Books)&#8212;and applauded Ephron for “mak[ing] the truth about life so funny” (TheSunday Times, London). In I Remember Nothing the beloved humorist returns with more razor-sharp reflections on growing older in the twenty-first century, along with those stories from the past she hasnt (yet) forgotten.

I Feel Bad About My Neck

and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman

With her disarming, intimate, completely accessible voice and dry sense of humor, Ephron shares with us her ups and downs in this wise, wonderful look at women of a certain age who are dealing with the tribulations of maintenance, menopause, empty nests, and everything in between. Ephron chronicles her life as an obsessed cook, a passionate city dweller, and a hapless parent. But mostly she speaks frankly and uproariously about getting older. Utterly courageous, unexpectedly moving, and laugh-out-loud funny, I Feel Bad About My Neck is a scrumptious, irresistible treat of a book.

I Remember Nothing

and Other Reflections

Ephron takes a cool, hard, hilarious look at the past, the present, and the future, writing about falling hard for a way of life (“Journalism: A Love Story”) and breaking up even harder with the men in her life (“The D Word”); revealing the alarming evolution, a decade after she wrote and directed Youve Got Mail, of her relationship with her in-box (“The Six Stages of E-mail”); and asking the age-old question, which came first, the chicken soup or the cold? All the while, she gives voice to everything women have been thinking . . . but rarely acknowledging. Filled with insights and observations that instantly ring true&#8212;and could have come only from Nora Ephron&#8212;I Remember Nothing is pure joy.

“[Ephron] retains an uncanny ability to sound like your best friend, whoever you are . . . Some things dont change. Its good to know that Ms. Ephrons wry, knowing X-ray vision is one of them.” &#8212;The New York Times

“Nora Ephron has become timeless.” &#8212;Los Angeles Times Book Review

About the Author

Nora Ephron is also the author of Wallflower at the Orgy. She received Academy Award nominations for Best Original Screenplay for When Harry Met Sally..., Silkwood, and Sleepless in Seattle, which she also directed. Her other credits include the film Michael and the play Imaginary Friends. She lives in New York City with her husband, writer Nicholas Pileggi.

What Our Readers Are Saying

Average customer rating based on 1 comment:

Cheryl Marseilles, September 19, 2006 (view all comments by Cheryl Marseilles)
Such a great, funny book to read anywhere,but watch out you may see yourself in this book! You will go everywhere a woman goes-even using the hair dryer, so sit back,and laugh, and you will never have a boring day again.

Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No(33 of 72 readers found this comment helpful)

"Publishers Weekly Review"
by Publishers Weekly,
"The honest truth is that it's sad to be over sixty,' concludes Nora Ephron in her sparkling new book about aging. With 15 essays in 160 pages, this collection is short, a thoughtful concession to pre- and post-menopausal women (who else is there?), like herself, who 'can't read a word on the pill bottle,' follow a thought to a conclusion, or remember the thought after not being able to read the pill bottle. Ephron drives the truth home like a nail in your soon-to-be-bought coffin: 'Plus, you can't wear a bikini.' But just as despair sets in, she admits to using 'quite a lot of bath oil... I'm as smooth as silk.' Yes, she is. This is aging lite — but that might be the answer. Besides, there's always Philip Roth for aging heavy.Ephron, in fact, offers a brief anecdote about Roth, in a chapter on cooking, concerning her friend Jane, who had a one-night stand, long ago, with the then 'up-and-coming' writer. He gave Jane a copy of his latest book. 'Take one on your way out,' he said. Conveniently, there was a box of them by the front door. Ephron refuses to analyze — one of her most refreshing qualities — and quickly moves on to Jane's cleri remoulade. Aging, according to Ephron, is one big descent — and who would argue? (Well, okay — but they'd lose the argument if they all got naked.) There it is, the steady spiraling down of everything: body and mind, breasts and balls, dragging one's self-respect behind them. Ephron's witty riffs on these distractions are a delightful antidote to the prevailing belief that everything can be held up with surgical scaffolding and the drugs of denial. Nothing, in the end, prevents the descent. While signs of mortality proliferate, Ephron offers a rebuttal of consequence: an intelligent, alert, entertaining perspective that does not take itself too seriously. (If you can't laugh, after all, you are already, technically speaking, dead.) She does, however, concede that hair maintenance — styling, dyeing, highlighting, blow-drying — is a serious matter, not to mention the expense. 'Once I picked up a copy of Vogue while having my hair done, and it cost me twenty thousand dollars. But you should see my teeth.' Digging deeper, she discovers that your filthy, bulging purse containing numerous things you don't need — and couldn't find if you did — is, 'in some absolutely horrible way, you.' Ephron doesn't shy away from the truth about sex either, and confesses, though with an appropriate amount of shame, that despite having been a White House intern in 1961, she did not have an affair with JFK. May Ephron, and her purse, endure so she can continue to tell us how it goes. Or, at least, where it went." Signature Review by Toni Bentley. Toni Bentley is the author, most recently, of Sisters of Salome and The Surrender, an Erotic Memoir. She is writing about Emma, Lady Hamilton, for the Eminent Lives series. Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"Review A Day"
by April Austin, The Christian Science Monitor,
"While very little in the book is meant to be taken seriously, it is clever enough to qualify as more than just an assemblage of one-liners. Whether you agree with her observations or not, Ephron's perspective as an admittedly high-maintenance, New York-dwelling, successful screenwriter will keep you entertained. She doesn't stop with necks, but takes on other afflictions (and a few delights) that mark this season of her life....These topics are laced with wry observations, told in an intimate style that makes Ephron seem like a close friend spilling details about her life." (read the entire CSM review)

"Review"
by Kirkus Reviews,
"A disparate assortment of sharp and funny pieces revealing the private anguishes, quirks and passions of a woman on the brink of senior citizenhood."

"Review"
by Janet Maslin, the New York Times,
"[M]ost of these essays work as comic relief, tailor-made to the publications in which they first appeared...but executed with overall sharpness and panache. They prompt the wish that Ms. Ephron would let down her painstakingly colored and blown-dry hair a lot more often."

"Review"
by Newsday,
"What is so refreshing about Ephron is that she doesn't take herself too seriously. Mid-complaint about her rising rent, she has the self-perspective to quip, 'And no one cared. Even I wouldn't have cared if I hadn't been me.'"

"Review"
by O: Oprah magazine,
"Use this wryly romantic book as a guide to musing about mortality, or just curling up in your empty nest."

"Review"
by Rocky Mountain News,
"I Feel Bad About My Neck...is the kind of book you want to buy for all your baby-boomer girlfriends as they dread their next birthdays. Her little book of essays is indeed a gift — rich with laughs and comforting in its reflections on everything from hair dye...to reading glasses."

"Review"
by Boston Globe,
"Ephron returns to her print roots with a new collection of essays reflecting the perspective of an aging — but still crackling sharp — cultural scribe."

"Synopsis"
by Random,
The perfect holiday gift: a pair of hilarious books from the “wickedly witty and astute” Nora Ephron, a “crackling smart cultural scribe” (The Boston Globe) whose insights and observations have made her a heroine to women all over America.

Critics and readers embraced the nationwide best seller I Feel Bad About My Neck&#8212;“Marvelous” (The Washington Post); “Sparkling” (Ladies Home Journal); “Delightful” (TheNew York Review of Books)&#8212;and applauded Ephron for “mak[ing] the truth about life so funny” (TheSunday Times, London). In I Remember Nothing the beloved humorist returns with more razor-sharp reflections on growing older in the twenty-first century, along with those stories from the past she hasnt (yet) forgotten.

I Feel Bad About My Neck

and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman

With her disarming, intimate, completely accessible voice and dry sense of humor, Ephron shares with us her ups and downs in this wise, wonderful look at women of a certain age who are dealing with the tribulations of maintenance, menopause, empty nests, and everything in between. Ephron chronicles her life as an obsessed cook, a passionate city dweller, and a hapless parent. But mostly she speaks frankly and uproariously about getting older. Utterly courageous, unexpectedly moving, and laugh-out-loud funny, I Feel Bad About My Neck is a scrumptious, irresistible treat of a book.

I Remember Nothing

and Other Reflections

Ephron takes a cool, hard, hilarious look at the past, the present, and the future, writing about falling hard for a way of life (“Journalism: A Love Story”) and breaking up even harder with the men in her life (“The D Word”); revealing the alarming evolution, a decade after she wrote and directed Youve Got Mail, of her relationship with her in-box (“The Six Stages of E-mail”); and asking the age-old question, which came first, the chicken soup or the cold? All the while, she gives voice to everything women have been thinking . . . but rarely acknowledging. Filled with insights and observations that instantly ring true&#8212;and could have come only from Nora Ephron&#8212;I Remember Nothing is pure joy.

“[Ephron] retains an uncanny ability to sound like your best friend, whoever you are . . . Some things dont change. Its good to know that Ms. Ephrons wry, knowing X-ray vision is one of them.” &#8212;The New York Times

“Nora Ephron has become timeless.” &#8212;Los Angeles Times Book Review

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